Qatar's Latest Remedy For High Heat: Playing World Cup In Middle Of The Night

Since nobody's had enough sense to take the 2022 World Cup out of Qatar's incompetent hands, I suppose we have to keep acknowledging the latest developments among Qatar's many ongoing problem-solving efforts.

So here's the problem: Qatar is very hot. Hot enough that playing soccer outside in the summer could kill players. Hot enough in the summer that merely sitting down to watch soccer could be construed as suicide.

No one has figured out what to do with that problem. Problem-solving discussions have played out in front of the public the way you might imagine ad execs brainstorming names for the newest flavor of Doritos chips.

Here's the best idea, apparently: Qatar might play World Cup soccer games in the middle of the night.

In fairness, playing games in the middle of the night is exactly as sensible as awarding the World Cup to a Middle Eastern country that expressly outlaws homosexuality and uses slave labor to build its stadiums.

When you're viewing this mess through the lens of that worldview, sure: Overnight games are a super idea. Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the former head of soccer in Chile and a possible candidate to be new FIFA president, proposed this in an interview with the BBC.

But unless you are Qatar or one of the American television networks that wouldn't have to tape-delay the games -- because nighttime in Qatar is daytime in North America -- it's easy to see this proposal as a half-baked solution for a problem no one can seem to solve.

Playing World Cup games at night presents a public relations disaster for FIFA, and a less-than-pleasant experience for fans. Players and teams will be frustrated by the weird sleep schedules they have to keep, which are a legitimate threat to the quality of play.

Fans, meanwhile, will be asked to attend a World Cup in a location where they can't comfortably go outside during the day, and then are uncomfortable being out late at night. Imagine the fan discomfort -- and inevitable ugly stories -- of releasing 100,000 emotionally charged fans from a soccer stadium into the streets of Doha at 3:30 in the morning.

Instead of celebrating the host nation, as is usually the case at the World Cup, fans will travel across the world to live like vampires for a couple of weeks. Sounds like a great vacation.

And what happened to air-conditioned stadiums, Qatar? You promised us air-conditioned outdoor stadiums to keep the oppressive Middle Eastern heat from adversely affecting players and fans. This technology, while never backed by any evidence that it could actually work, was a part of your formal bid for the World Cup and an important response to one of the seven or 20 Very Good Reasons Why Qatar Should Not Host The World Cup.

Now we're talking about playing games at night instead. Did your HVAC guy retire? Or is the answer simpler, like, "We sort of just made that up and paid Sepp Blatter a bunch of money to pick us?"